Mr. Bowles in his _History of Bremhill_, makes a few observations
suggested by the account in _Domesday Book_, on the wages, and some of
the prices of agricultural produce on the farms where the _villani_ and
_servi_, literally _slaves_ and _villans_, laboured. When we find two
oxen sold for seventeen shillings and four-pence, we must bear in mind
that one Norman shilling was as much in value as three of ours; when we
find that thirty hens were sold for three farthings each, we must bear
in mind the same proportion. The price of a sheep was one shilling, that
is three of ours. Wheat was six shillings a-quarter; that would be,
according to our scale, two shillings and three-pence a-bushel. Now, at
the time of this calculation, everything must have borne a greater
price, reckoning by money, than at the time of Domesday; for the prices
of articles now set down (from an authentic document of the accounts of
the Duke of Cornwall, first published from the original by Sir R.C.
Hoare, in his _History of Mere_,) bear date somewhat more than two
hundred years afterwards, in the reign of Edward the First, 1299. But at
that time, what were the wages of the labourer? The ploughman's wages
were about five shillings a-year, fifteen shillings by the present
scale; a maid for making "pottage" received a penny a week!
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